POYEL: Decluttering Weekend

Two Fridays ago I told you we were shipping the kids off to the grandparents for the weekend with the goal of decluttering pretty much the entire house while they were away. Today I thought I’d give you the quick and dirty on how it all went down. We didn’t quite cover the entire house, our office and a few random drawers remain, but overall we were very pleased with our progress.

My husband almost completely cleaned out our garage (previously known as the black hole) and I conquered the master bedroom, linen closet, storage closet, kids’ closets and dressers, all the kitchen cabinets, our ancient DVD/Blu Ray collection, and the play room. In the end, we were able to fill our truck up to the brim with all the eliminated clutter and happily haul it off to Good Will.

I know that dedicating an entire weekend to decluttering isn’t feasible for a lot of you but it really was a great way to finally get it done. If you have family at your disposal, I highly recommend going this route. I’d been working on projects here and there for a while now but getting so much done at once has really motivated to maintain my cleaner, lighter home.

Whether you go big or patiently chip away at your clutter, here are a few tips I’ve picked up along the way:

Turn on HGTV while you work. It makes it so much easier to get rid of anything you don’t love when you have graphic images of what you’re aspiring towards flashing in the background.

Declutter and organize THEN buy the pretty storage containers. The anticipation of a shopping trip is a good incentive to get the dirty work done. Plus doing it this way will ensure you buy pieces that will function best in your space.

Set up stations around the house to temporarily corral items that don’t seem to have a home. For example, last week I highlighted these too big/small tubs for kid closets. I’m also a fan of setting up a Good Will/long term storage/short term storage station somewhere in your house (DIY to come). The key to these, of course, is that you have to find a permanent home for the stations’ contents before they’re over-flowing.

Plan a time in your schedule to reorganize/clean out an area of your house on a regular basis. Maintenance is always the hardest part of getting organized. If you have the luxury of devoting an entire weekend to decluttering, build some time in to your regular schedule to make sure all your hard work doesn’t go to waste.

Those are my pearls of wisdom, now how about yours? Are you guys making progress in your spring cleaning? What’s made the most difference?

This post is part of MPMK’s “Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life”. You can read all about it here, check out all of our projects here, and join thousands of POYEL facebook group members here.

P.S. Looking for more ways to simplify and save time so you can connect with your family? Follow these 3 steps: